


The Straw That Breaks My Back

by alcoholandregret



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: (that's a joke), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Theatre, I mean mikey is a senior and jake's graduated already but you know, M/M, the fact that mikey makes it out of this alive is a godsend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 13:50:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13237053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcoholandregret/pseuds/alcoholandregret
Summary: Listen, he knows he could easily get to rehearsals on time, considering he lives a five minute walk from the school, and the ones that are just after school should be even easier. It isn't that he doesn't know that, it's just that he doesn't care. Like, the only other person that they could possibly have play the lead is Nic, but he has his own role. Mikey's safe.Plus, twenty minutes isn't that long. They - Jake, mostly - can fucking deal.





	The Straw That Breaks My Back

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent](https://youtu.be/_x-yS6iKiV8)

At this point he doesn't even do it for the coffee, really. He knows this, Nate knows this, hell, Jake almost definitely knows it too. It's just pretty fucking hilarious to see the stage manager get fired up every time he shows up late. Though more recently he's just... defeated. It's miles less fun, really, but, like, what are they gonna do about it? Nothing. It's fine. Mikey will continue to show up late, Jake will continue to hate him for it, and the show will go on.

Nate tells him he's an asshole.

He won't disagree.

"I'll be better tomorrow," he tells Nate when he drops him off one Friday after rehearsal. "Promise."

"Yeah. Sure."

He's still twenty minutes late, he still has Starbucks, and he still doesn't care. Nate doesn't looks surprised, which is reasonable.

"Michael." Jake sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Mikey," he corrects for the thousandth time.

"How nice of you to join us."

"Yeah I figured I had nothing better to do on a Saturday than spend time with you," he shrugs. "But I brought you a present."

"Is it your presence?"

"No, but thank you for acknowledging that that's a gift," he grins and holds out the second Starbucks cup in his hand. "I asked Con what you get, but he didn't know, so you got a frappe. Enjoy."

Jake eyes it warily, but accepts the cup anyway. "You're still late."

"And you're still the worst," he turns and goes back to where Nate is rehearsing lines with Alex.

Listen, he knows he could easily get to rehearsals on time, considering he lives a five minute walk from the school, and the ones that are just after school should be even easier. It isn't that he doesn't _know_ that, it's just that he doesn't _care_. Like, the only other person that they could possibly have play the lead is Nic, but he has his own role. Mikey's safe.

Plus, twenty minutes isn't _that_ long. They - Jake, mostly - can fucking deal.

He doesn't hate him or anything, per say. It's a near thing, but hate is a strong word and all that. Mostly Jake gets on Mikey's nerves, and Mikey makes a game out of getting on Jake's. It's a good thing they've got going on, you know? It's some kind of something-biotic relationship or whatever those were called. Bio was freshman year, how could he be expected to remember that.

"Parasitic," Nate provides for him when Mikey's laying upside down on his couch so they can run lines. "The word you're looking for is parasitic."

"I'm telling Jake you called him a parasite."

"I'm definitely not talking about Jake."

"You're the worst friend in the world," he throws his script at him, but misses by a mile.

The thing is, beyond the showing up late consistently thing, there's nothing that Jake can really actually complain about. Sure, that's annoying and all that, but Mikey does his shit. He learns his lines and his stage directions and does a really good job getting into character and-

He thinks that's probably what annoys Jake the most - that he can't get on his case for shit.

"I don't really like coffee," Jake says when Mikey hands him Starbucks for the sixth rehearsal in a row - this time an iced chai. He'd been switching it up every time, because Jake refused to tell him what he likes.

"Technically that's tea, I think."

He shrugs and drinks some of it, nodding to himself. "Not bad."

"Holy shit, call the press. I think I know the editor of the school newspaper. I'll let her know. Jake Finally Likes A Drink Mikey So Thoughtfully Brought Him."

"I said it wasn't bad, not that I liked it."

"Too late. That's all you're getting for the rest of the show."

"Great," he rolls his eyes, but he looks amused, and Mikey's smiling, and it isn't at Jake’s expense.

That's- that's new.

He doesn't dwell on it.

It becomes habit, though. He shows up 20 minutes late with his - and Jake's - Starbucks, Jake halfheartedly scolds him for it, they move on, rehearsal goes well, Nate calls him an asshole, etc. It's nothing really out of the ordinary.

Tech week, though. That's a whole other story.

Mikey knows how tech week goes - this isn't his first show. It's stressful for everyone, but the entire crew is like four seconds away from having an anxiety attack for six straight days, and that can be contagious, so everyone is on edge.

So he shows up ten minutes late with Starbucks.

The first day, Jake looks so fucking relieved that he's there early - going by Mikey Time, of course - that he just takes the chai and doesn't even try to yell at him. Nate rolls his eyes.

The second day, Jake looks like he's about to explode, just like, in general, so he takes the drink and runs off to go do something with the lighting designer.

The third day, Jake grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him a little.

"If I'm going to make it through this week, I need fucking coffee, Mikey."

That's the first time he's called him anything but Michael, so he just nods and ignores the lump in his throat.

He brings him coffee the next day.

The fifth day, though, blocking day, Jake is more or less shaking when he gets there, and he actually properly yells at Mikey for five minutes. He goes on about how selfish he is, and how it would be really nice if he could arrive on time just fucking _once_ so they didn't all have to wait for his cocky ass, the whole nine yards.

Mikey just stares at him through the whole thing.

When he's finished, Jake just deflates and Mikey holds out the coffee. "Feel better now?"

"Yeah."

He gives him a thumbs up and goes over to join the rest of the cast.

Jake doesn't apologise, Mikey doesn't expect him to, and Nate actually seems to think that Mikey is going to start showing up on time now, like as if Jake yelling at him would be enough to ‘change his ways’ or some shit.

"We've been best friends for _how_ many years, now?"

Nate just sighs.

Day six, the last day of tech week, he shows up five minutes late with the coffees.

"Wow, how punctual," Jake says, meaning it to be a joke, but the actual shocked expression on his face kills it.

Mikey shrugs, and he's grinning, and he's kind of really bummed that the show is almost over.

They have one more rehearsal before the shows, and they're going to be running through the entire show, so Mikey really, _really_ needs to be there on time.

He's twenty minutes late.

Jake looks like he could actually kill him right there in cold blood, and not one single person in that auditorium would blame him for it.

It's fine, though. He takes the chai tea - he's back to the tea, now - and actually drinks it instead of, like, throwing it at Mikey. So really, how mad can he _actually_ be?

He's not an actual _total_ asshole, so he knows he needs to actually show up on time on the days of the shows, and he does. In fact, he shows up ten minutes early.

Jake does a double take on opening night.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Mikey?"

He just hands Jake the drink and he looks like he could hug him. Honestly, it's a near thing. As fun as pissing him off has been, this is almost better. Almost.

He continues the trend of showing up early for the rest of the show nights, and Jake actually uses those couple minutes to just. Talk with him. It's nice, considering they'd been dealing with each other - fine, Jake has been dealing with Mikey - for two and a half months, and they'd never really had any actual conversation.

Nate asks him what's going on, and Mikey tells him he doesn't know.

He doesn't.

Then, as soon as the show had started, it's over. Curtains closed and he can abandon the role he'd held for months just like that.

Curtains closed on interacting with Jake. Just like that.

It's disappointing in a way, he realises at the cast party. Nate's telling a story to Nic and Alex, and Jake is talking to Conor and some other members of the crew across the way, and he's not focused on the interaction he _should_ be focusing on. Nate notices, and nudges him, and like, they've been friends long enough that he doesn't have to say anything else. Mikey knows what he means. He knows and he hates it, and he's walking over to Jake before he even tells his legs to do just that.

"Guess you're free of me now," he says as a greeting, and the group Jake was talking to disappears the moment he does. "Tough crowd?"

"None of them like you, I hope you know that."

"It's fair."

"That's one way to put it," Jake nods, and he's smiling, so it's fine.

"Kinda sucks, though," he shrugs. "I'm gonna miss bothering you every day."

"I bet."

"I could still bother you, though," Mikey starts before he can stop himself. Now or never, or whatever. "You do owe me like, forty cups of coffee."

"And you owe me about twenty hours of my time."

Mikey doesn't want to get his hopes up or read the situation wrong or anything, but that _kind of_ sounded like an agreement. "Yeah, I guess I do. Two birds, one stone?"

Jake pulls out his phone, and Mikey has to contain the tiny celebration he's doing mentally. He puts his number in, setting his contact name as _Coffee Date ;)_ and texts himself.

"Glad that's settled, then," he hands the phone back. "Can't wait."

"One thing."

"Yeah?"

Jake pockets his phone and grins. "Gonna show up on time for once, Michael?"

**Author's Note:**

> my friend that doesn't care about hockey looked at pictures of jake and mikey and told me "jake is the stage manager and mikey is the asshole actor that shows up late every single day" so there's this ig
> 
> catch me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/alcoholnregret) and [tumblr ](http://www.sidnate.tumblr.com)


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